It looks like being a pretty depressing night for those of us who value sanity, common decency and feel generally positive towards America and its people. But it’s worth remembering that the nuts and bigots of the Tea Party movement are not the only voices to be heard at this time. Here’s an admirable piece of sanity from one Ron Rosenbaum, that appearered in Slate.com back in April. You may want to check it out as the results roll in tonight:

“Consider this CNN report, which attempts to give a smiley face to the Tea Party’s underlying ideology. Even Fox News recognizes Tea Party dogma as a seething cauldron of deranged and vicious lies about history. Look at the guy in the photo in this report and how proud he is of his illiterate swastika sign.

Above: A Tea Party protester in Chicago

“These swastika nuts look ridiculous. But words matter, sometimes in a life-and-death way. Take for instance the Tea Party demonization of “federal regulation” as the instrument of the tyranny that’s been imposed on them. I would like every Tea Partier who has denounced federal regulation to write a letter to the widows and children of the coalminers in West Virginia who died because of the failure of “federal regulation” of mine safety.

“Tell the weeping survivors that such regulation is tyranny, that their husbands and fathers had to die, but for a good cause: lowering federal spending so the T.P.ers could save a few pennies on taxes. That’s worth 29 lives snuffed out in a mine blast, isn’t it? They either don’t see the connection or don’t care.

“Indeed the demonization of ‘federal regulation’ could prevent cowardly legislators from strengthening protections for miners and other workers imperiled by unsafe conditions. But the happy T.P.ers will still go out with their swastika and Hitler-mustache signs, whining about tyranny. Wouldn’t it be great if there were a liberal politician who, in the wake of the mining catastrophe, had the courage to stand up and say that federal regulations are often a very good thing? Don’t hold your breath.

“This is just one example of the toxic effect of Tea Party ignorance on the lives of their fellow citizens. But the damage done by the injection of fraudulent history into the body politic by Tea Party ignoramuses and their enablers will be more profound and lasting than one tragedy.

“That’s because ignorance of this sort isn’t inconsequential. Historical fraudulence is like a disease, a contagious psychosis which can lead to mob hysteria and worse. Consider the role that fraudulent history played in Weimar Germany, where the ‘stab in the back’ myth that the German Army had been cheated of victory in World War I by Jews and Socialists on the home front was used by the Nazis to justify their hatreds…”

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3 Comments

lukesaid,

im from the US and can assure that many people in the Tea Party movement probably don’t even know what the Tea Party was in American history. I’d say my country’s political system is about 10 years from becoming Italy’s….